Assessing the Impacts of Collaborative Teaching and Planning in a Cross-City STEM-Focused Initiative

• In Event: Better Together: Opportunities, Challenges, and Outcomes of Formal and Informal Educator Collaborations

Abstract

Objectives and theoretical framework
In 2007, ExpandED Schools launched the Frontiers in Urban Science Exploration (FUSE) Initiative to cultivate the interest and capacity of local nonprofits and school districts to deliver high-quality, inquiry-based STEM education in the out-of-school time space. FUSE administrators create conducive conditions for high-quality STEM learning to occur in informal settings by providing professional development in STEM and youth development practices (“grassroots solutions”) and creating venues for educators, administrators, researchers, and funders to explore and share best practices in STEM education (“grasstops solutions”). With oversight by Every Hour Counts (formerly, the Collaborative for Building Afterschool Systems), the initiative has grown over the course of the past decade to touch communities across cities nationwide.

Based on early evaluation findings, the most recent iteration of the FUSE model, launched in 2015, has a targeted focus on assessing the impact of educator collaboration - with an emphasis on fostering collaboration between formal educators (e.g., school-day science teachers) and their informal educator counterparts (e.g., community educators) through shared lesson planning and co-teaching time. This approach is designed to encourage linkages between day-school and out-of-school STEM instruction so that out-of-school activities reinforce the learning happening in school. Partner agencies include intermediaries in New York City, Providence, Boston, and Nashville.

Methods and Data Sources
Over the past two years, the impact of this collaborative teaching model on over 1,500 students and 135 educators has been evaluated via a mixed-methods approach consisting of structured activity observations, staff surveys, self-assessed fidelity rubrics, interviews with agency administrators, and standardized assessments of both youth interest and engagement in STEM as well as social-emotional development in three domains: collaboration, perseverance, and critical thinking.

Results
While the project is currently wrapping its second year of evaluation, a number of promising findings have already been documented. Educators in both school year and summer programs reported significantly greater confidence in their ability to lead STEM activities, with 94% of educators agreeing that they could lead STEM activities effectively after participation in FUSE and 91% reporting that collaboration enhanced their ability to lead successful STEM activities. Student impacts include 70% of students reporting an increased interest in STEM after participating in FUSE and 85% reporting an improvement in social-emotional skills. These outcomes appear strongest in the cities and program periods where partner agencies have made collaborative planning and teaching an explicit component of the program model, as opposed to collaborative planning alone.


Significance of Work
Early evaluation findings suggest a real merit in employing certified teachers to participate in the out-of-school time space. However, there remains variation in how the field conceives of and structures collaborative teaching in STEM. By teasing out the distinctions among these implementation models, ExpandED Schools is working to define the relative value of collaborative planning vs collaborative teaching as it relates to both student and educator outcomes.

Authors

• Lizzie Murchison, ExpandED Schools

• Sabrina Gomez, ExpandED Schools